The former president of the Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, called this Thursday “unconstitutional” and “discriminatory” the “national priority” that Vox has imposed on the PP in the government pacts of Extremadura and Aragón. “Names are born free and equal, the priority is preference, superiority,” he assured at a public event of the Andalusian PSOE in Jaén to support the socialist candidate for the presidency of the Board, María Jesús Montero.
“The same people who talk about putting obstacles and discriminating against migrants are talking about depopulation, but the formula for that empty Spain to recover its population will be with migrants who want to live here, who we have to integrate, like Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina treated thousands and thousands of Spaniards who went there in the post-war period,” Zapatero insisted.
For the former president of the Government, migrants who come to Spain to pick olives, care for the elderly or work in construction come “looking for a future, as many Andalusians had to do during the Franco era.” For this reason, he referred to the “national priority” that the popular and ultras have stated in their pacts for the autonomous government of Extremadura, a week ago, and Aragón, this same Wednesday: “That is not Spain, nor democracy nor dignity nor human rights, it is unconstitutional, contrary to all international treaties, it is discrimination.”
Regarding the leaders of the Andalusian opposition, Zapatero has regretted that the opposition leaders criticize María Jesús Montero, former vice president of the Government, for the regional financing system that she proposed, and has recalled that the two main models have been that of the minister and the one that he approved during his time as President of the Executive, which incorporated the recognition of the “historic debt” for Andalusia.
“So much so that they have accused her and criticized her. Why? Because María Jesús Montero is loyal, she has courage, she is brave and she has also never looked out for herself. She has always looked out for the good of the country and for the good of Andalusia. You have to have courage and bravery. I have admiration for her,” Zapatero extolled.
Previously, María Jesús Montero began her intervention by referring to Zapatero as her “talisman” and called for optimism and the mobilization of militancy: “I am not going to be the president of conformity or resignation, I am going to be the president who transforms Andalusia, who vitalizes public services, who defends what belongs to everyone. That is my roadmap.”
And then he has attacked the attitude that the Andalusian president Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla boasts: “It is seen in the faces of the people, it is seen in the eyes of our neighbors… that people are tired of appearances, of the fact that the only answers they get are pats on the back or hollow smiles that do not address the needs of citizens or concrete answers to improve housing, health, education or dependency.”
To Moreno’s continuous allusions to the need for stability in Andalusia, Montero has responded like this: “But what stability does a society have when there are more than 200,000 people waiting for a surgical intervention that should have arrived a year ago or what stability does a society have where the elderly do not have access to dependency?”
Montero has also asked the militants to “turn that indignation into votes.” “Andalusia, a land rich in talent, capacity, a land that pushes, will never resign, as it did not then resign itself to staying in the back car, to being in a second gear, to having first-class citizens and second-class citizens. So we trust in victory, we trust in the capacity that the men and women of our party have in word of mouth and transmit the hope, enthusiasm and dignity of this land,” he highlighted.
